


Armchair

by ceywoozle



Series: One Word Bottomjohn Prompts [23]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, John is sad, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, but then he is happy, not an accurate representation of how to deal with trauma, please don't try this at home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:32:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>part of the one word bottomjohn prompt series.</p><p>not all of john's memories are happy ones, but it does get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armchair

_“Bend down, Johnny. Put your hands on the chair.”_

John can hear the words as if the man is standing in the room next to him, that matter-of-fact command in that long-dead voice, gravelled and heavy with alcohol and smoke.

_“Please, dad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”_

He can taste his own words still, high and desperate, the  _plea_  in them, even as he knew they would be ignored, that his begging only made it worse. And his father, grizzled and filled with a seemingly endless rage, forcibly pushing him down, his face inches from the worn red seat, his bared arse pushed up and those horrifying seconds between, between the whispering sound of his father’s belt being removed and when the blows would land, when he was just _waiting._

He remembers it. He hasn’t thought of it for years. But he stands now in this strange flat with this strange man and looks around him at the disaster. As far from his childhood home as anything could possible get, as far from leather biting into his skin, from humiliation, from agony, as far as he could ever expect to find himself…except…except for that  _chair_.

He stares at it and knows that he’s staring. Red faded tapestry cushions and worn seat. It can’t be the same one. It  _can’t._  He spent lifetimes staring down at that cushion, waiting for the blows to fall. Surely he would be able to tell.

But he can’t. And he thinks he might lose his mind. Start gibbering and thrashing about right then and there. He knows he’s staring, he knows the madman—Sherlock Holmes—and the landlady are watching him, waiting for him to move, to say something, to react in any way. He knows they’re starting to look at each other, shifty glances cast back and forth as they silently try and gauge what’s wrong with him, this broken, battered army captain, wondering if he’s really worth the trouble.

“It’s great,” he says, forces himself to say. He doesn’t completely understands the words he uses though. “This could be really something great.” And as they watch, he limps over to the chair—surely, _surely_  not the same chair—and sits down in it.

“It’s great.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s not the same chair, of course. But it’s close enough.

Close enough that sometimes when John sits in it, when he’s angry at himself, at the things he’s done, or hasn’t done, all the fuck-ups and let-downs and non-apologies, he feels like he is his father. That this chair was sitting here all these years, waiting for him, for all his many failures to finally catch up.

And after Sherlock—

 _After Sherlock…_  he sits in it and thinks of all the things he’s done wrong. All the things he should have done better. And he knows, somehow, that this had been up to him. The there was a moment that he missed, something he forgot along the way. Something important that made him waver, made him doubt, made him _rage._  And Sherlock had seen that.

And Sherlock had done what Sherlock always did.

The clever way out.

The path you least expected.

It’s a long time before John gets out of that chair.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s only years later, after Sherlock—

 _After Sherlock…_ after the long trip back from wherever that they had both taken without each other, after they finally look at each other and see the things they’ve been missing this whole time, after they kiss, after the first frantic exploration, after the softer moments that soon follow, as they lay in the same bed, naked and sweaty and just touching…when the knots in John’s head and in his heart are coming untangled and he can see the threads laid out in a clear, straight line ahead of him. Only then does John tell him about the chair, about his father, about the belt.

Sherlock doesn’t say anything. He’s quiet, a hand gently entangled with John’s.

It’s enough. It’s more than he ever expected.

~~~~~~~~~~

When John comes home the next day, it’s to find Sherlock, tall and straight and naked in the sitting room. He is standing there, on the threadbare carpet in the afternoon light and John has to remember how to breathe.

“John,” he says, his voice decided but soft. “Take off your clothes.”

John does. He’s never been able to say no to Sherlock. And when he’s naked as well and they’re staring at each other across the intervening space, Sherlock steps aside and points at the red chair, the red chair, that’s not the same but might as well be.

“John. Do you trust me?”

John nods. He’s staring at the chair.  _The_  chair. Unable to speak.

“John.” The word insistent but gentle.  _Oh,_  infinitely gentle.

He nods again, harder this time. Forcing his dry lips to part, his suddenly swollen tongue to move. “Yes,” he says. “Of course I trust you.”

Sherlock smiles. “Then bend down. Put your hands on the chair.” And when John hesitates, takes a single step back, Sherlock reaches a hand out towards him, carefully. “Please John. Trust me.”

John does, of course. He always does.

It is…breathtakingly terrifying. He is exposed. So exposed, and he feels the first burns of humiliation run through him. He is eight again, with his arse in the air, listening to the sound of a belt being dragged from his father’s jeans, the metal clink of the clasps rattling in a large fist.

When the first touch of Sherlock’s hand meets the naked skin of his back he actually cries out, flinching hard and almost falling.

Sherlock doesn’t try to grab him. Just keeps one long-fingered hand splayed on John’s back, present but not restraining, and it’s John who finds his balance again. Steadies himself and puts himself back into position. Sherlock’s hand helps. Sherlock’s hand is _everything._  John focuses on it, hones in on that touch, on the new familiarity of it. He can feel his breath evening out, his heart starting to slow. Humiliation and fear are slower things to fade, but when Sherlock’s hand starts to move, tracing lightly across the skin of his back, slowly sliding lower to caress the upraised cheeks of his arse, even they are forgotten. When his breath speeds up again, it has nothing to do with his memories.

“Open your eyes, John,” Sherlock says, and only then does John realise he’s closed them. So he opens them. Of course he does. He stares at the faded red cushion, at his own hands clutching at the material. He makes a sound somewhere between a whine and plea and as he does he feels the first careful push of Sherlock’s finger at his opening. It is slick and warm and when it slowly presses forward John doesn’t try to move out of its way. He feels it inside him, gently parting him, slowly taking over, something far more significant than it should be for such a small thing. But  _oh God_  it’s good. It’s  _good._  He is panting and he doesn’t realise the noises he’s making till he feels the push of the last knuckle against his rim and Sherlock can’t go any further.

“John?” he asks then, so quiet, so careful. “Are you okay?”

“Please,” John says, grasping at the breath needed to speak. “Sherlock, please.”

“Please, what?” Sherlock asks, and John knows he’s not doing it to tease him, but to be sure that this is okay. That the agony of pleasure isn’t being mistaken for panic.

“Please, Sherlock,” John says. “Make me come for you.”

For a moment there is no response, and then gently, achingly slow, he feels the press of lips against his back, and then a hand slides around his front and takes John’s cock in a large, warm grip.

“Then come for me, John,” Sherlock murmurs against John’s skin, and pumps his fist once and John is coming, crying out at the suddenness of it, the urgency, clenching around the finger still deep inside him. He bites into the cushion of the faded red chair and moans his completion into its stale sunlight smell.

And this time when he starts to fall, Sherlock catches him. Pulling him close against him, gently slipping his fingers from between John’s clenching cheeks, and gathering him to his chest. Pulling them both into the chair. The chair. He holds John in his lap.

It was never the same chair anyway.


End file.
